RetroVogue

11/13/2025

11/13/2025

02/14/2025

Different types of sleeves 📌

03/10/2024

Happy 65th Birthday, Barbie! Did you know this gal has connections to the Badger State?

Barbara "Barbie" Millicent Roberts, an 11.5" tall plastic doll, is supposedly from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin. Barbie was the brainchild of Ruth Handler, who co-founded Mattel Inc. with her husband Elliot Handler and their business partner Harold “Matt” Matson. In a time when most dolls were in the form of babies and young children, Ruth believed girls wanted to dream about being grown up and dressing in fashionable clothes. She pitched the idea of a new doll to her business partners and, after much convincing from Ruth, Barbie debuted at the 1959 International Toy Fair wearing her iconic black-and-white striped swimsuit. The doll was met with mixed reviews, but Mattel went on to sell 350,000 of the $3 doll in its first year.

Learn more: https://wihist.org/3VabHax

📸: Barbie, circa 1961 | Wisconsin Historical Museum object 1972.17.10

01/26/2024

WOW, I never knew this!

12/30/2023

04/21/2023

Photo by Bert Stern, April 1967